We hope you like the headline, good job WH Auden never got there first! Now, to business: our round up this week is a mix of stories, some designed to comfort the afflicted (“HOPE”) and others designed to afflict the comfortable (“DESPAIR”) So, without further ado, let’s set off on our journey of discovery!
HOPE: Smart Insulin We have always sympathised with diabetes sufferers who must depend for life itself on regular injections. Imagine if these were replaced with a smart insulin molecule that “knew” to kick in exactly when it was needed! Well, that day may dawn quite soon:
DESPAIR: Antagonistic antibiotics We have always hymned the praises of antibiotics. But we are also a fair and balanced lot (we would be thrown out of the Whig Party if we weren’t) and we candidly admit that there may be circumstances in which the prescription of antibiotics can produce unwelcome effects.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13724201/antibiotics-rash-life-threatening-Britons.html
HOPE: Solar Power everywhere. Last year a prominent member of the Editorial Board had Solar panels installed. And remarkable they have proved. But every technology is only as good as the year it’s made in. What if you could develop a new type which you could coat onto everything-the car, your anorak, the garden wall? Scientists at Oxford University may have done just that:
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2024-08-09-solar-energy-breakthrough-could-reduce-need-solar-farms
thanks to P Seymour
DESPAIR: Microbes Mutate in the Microwave We keep a pretty clean microwave round here-and rightly so. All those nasty little stains contain microbes-and it looks as if some of them can mutate to survive the radiation beams. If they can do it a microwave oven then, they can do it in the presence of antibiotics or bacteriophages too. Depressing.
HOPE Fusion Spin Offs before there is fusion One of our core beliefs is that learning generates learning. Discoveries in one area can have amazing spin offs in others. So, with a certain pride, we finish with this piece which suggests that all the herculean efforts to develop nuclear fusion technologies have not been in vain. We may not get the power until the late thirties-but there are already amazing benefits in everything from health to green energy. Next time some genius suggests cutting taxes, ask them if it will affect the University sector.
And finally: this thought from the late great Arthur C Clarke, who noted that there must be intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe: proof of this comes in the fact that they have never visited us on this planet.
#microorganisms #solar power #climate change #antibiotics #arthur c clarke
Learning, Science and Society 